CFP: Special issue of Canada and Beyond

The Brazilian comparison makes good sense for Canadianists yet our different histories of colonialism, indigenous relations, and cultural debates about capitalism, democracy, multiculturalism, and globalization have seldom been investigated with the sustained attention they deserve. In literary studies, only a few names such as P.K. Page, Elizabeth Bishop, Jan Conn, and (more recently) Priscila Uppal have attracted much attention in their portrayals of Brazil, while the presence of Canada in Brazilian literature is even scarcer. This call for a special issue on Canada, Brazil, and Beyond begins to address the question of what might be learned from thinking about Brazil and Canada together. What creative works and new angles of analysis have been missed by neglecting this comparison? What revised frameworks might such a focus call for?

Canadian Studies has traditionally been oriented toward an Atlantic Studies paradigm working in English or French. Pacific and Northern studies functioned as supplements to this transatlantic orientation. Neither multicultural nor postcolonial studies succeeded in fundamentally dislodging it. A shift away from Europe toward situating Canada within the Americas was signaled by a few texts, which, however, paid scant attention to Brazil. Albert Braz proposes the label “Outer America” for Canada and Brazil as these two large countries are often forgotten in continental dialogues (119). With the exception of a few special journal issues and the journal Interfaces Brasil/Canadá, the journal of the Brazilian Association for Canadian Studies, the Canada-Brazil relation remains under-discussed.

Indigenous and Latin American decolonial studies, developing concurrently with the rise of interest in global and hemispheric studies, are creating an environment more receptive to thinking about Canada and Brazil, their changing relations, and the varied contexts in which they might illuminate each other. Canadian studies scholars, an international community, now look, not only to the east and west but also south and north from Canada as disciplinary alignments react to changing pressures. This contextual broadening, indicated by the launch of the journal, Canada and Beyond, from its base in Spain, now works across languages as well as across oceans and continents. It is in the light of these changes that we issue a call for papers rethinking the relations between Canada, Brazil, and Beyond.

We invite original papers on any dimension of this theme from scholars working within and across disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. Essays should be 6,000 – 8,000 words, double-spaced, and follow MLA style. Please email queries any time and completed papers to Diana.Brydon@umanitoba.ca and Almeida3@myumanitoba.ca by March 1, 2016. Papers will be reviewed with an aim of publication in the Spring 2017 issue.